The Fight To Be Alive
by EnchantedApril
Summary: In a world where Kryptonians are feared as little more than violent criminals, gladiator-style televised fights have become the new normal. Kara was safe as long as she remained hidden, but she couldn't let her sister's plane go down and now she has been the property of LordTech for nearly two years... This will be a slow-burn Kara/Cat eventually (though non-graphic).
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Kara Zor-El Danvers had contemplated mortality at thirteen years of age, watching her planet explode in a reflection on the window of her escape pod. She had promised, in her heart, to continue living for her family and all the rest on Krypton who had perished. And then she had gone to sleep and been trapped in a timeless void for two decades.

If only Kal-El had kept his powers hidden. If only he had been satisfied to live his life as Clark Kent. If only he had never donned a cape and accepted the title of Superman. And if only he had put less faith and trust in the government when he was approached and asked to submit to some testing and studies to further the knowledge of alien life-forms.

But he had trusted. Trusted and been betrayed by the father of the woman he loved. General Lane had met aliens before Kal-El. He had met them in underground desert bunkers and seen them laid out on dissection tables, still alive. He had seen one attempt to escape and snap the neck of one of his jailers with one twist of its wrist. Those aliens had looked less human than Kal-El, but in General Lane's mind, they were all alike.

One of the last things Kal-El had done, as Superman, was retrieve his cousin from her pod and bring her to the Danvers' home. It was the last time they would see each other.

Kara had been unable to believe the news, only weeks later, that Superman had disappeared. El Mayara, she had repeated over and over in her head and told herself that her last remaining family would not abandon her. But it seemed that he had, and Kara closed herself off even more and pretended to be human even as she struggled not to slam doors off their hinges and break plates by cutting too hard.

Now Kara - because she remembered that was her name even if everyone referred to her by a number or the letter K - struggled to remember the face of her cousin. The faces of her adoptive family. The faces of her parents whom she had sworn to live for. She knew she was still breathing: heart beating, blood pumping, but she was no longer sure if it was the same as being alive.

There was a harsh rattling of the steel door and she scurried to the corner, curling herself onto a thin mattress, Kryptonite-laced bracelets crossed over her head as if that could protect her from whoever was outside of her cell. This time the door didn't open, just a slot in the middle, and a tray of food was pushed through along with the command to eat quickly.

It was an unnecessary command. She had been denied food so many times or had it snatched from her grasp, that she wolfed down any meal she was given without pausing to so much as breathe. That continued to hold true. Kara rushed to retrieve the styrofoam tray - nothing metal, that could be made into a weapon - and hardly noted the contents before starting to eat. It was almost always the same anyway. Breakfast meant sort of meat, a scoop of eggs or oatmeal and bread. They had learned that the Kryptonians didn't need the variety of vitamins that humans required. They only had to consume enough calories to keep their bodies from shutting down. And they knew exactly how much that was and rarely offered more.

On training days the rations were doubled or tripled but by the times she was permitted to eat, Kara was so hungry that she never felt full or even satisfied.

Training days meant twelve hours in a room with dim lights and thin pads that smelled of sweat and vomit and blood. She was made to fight one opponent after another. The first month she had picked up techniques only as a matter of survival until inevitably she was beaten unconscious only to be woken by a splash of ice water over her body and a new opponent to fight. These days, when they dialed her bracelets down and let her have a tiny amount of her true strength, she could hold her own against most of the men they sent to fight her. It took two men, in the final hour of the day, to beat her until she didn't rise again.

They have forced her to beat prisoners who were in worse conditions than her. They have forced her to watch when those prisoners were then killed right there in the training room. When she cried, they brought in another weakened Kryptonian and made her do it again. Then they brought in human prisoners who had agreed to fight in exchange for reductions to their sentences. Some were stone-cold murderers and rapists, but some were not much more than teenagers, with crimes that surely did not deserve the punishment she was forced to inflict.

She refused again and again when they brought her young people full of bravado in their stance but fear in their eyes. The prisoners were still summarily beaten or killed and then she was punished - tortured - until they threw her back in her cell only to start again the next day. It was two months before she finally killed one of the young prisoners. The young man begged her to do it and she did it quickly - much quicker than the guards would have - and she felt her soul die with his. She refused again the next day and the next until Maxwell Lord finally came around and saw her huddled in her cell and declared that her spirit was clearly broken and that part of her training was over.

"She won't be fighting any weaklings like that in the ring anyway," he said with careless callousness as he walked away.

A single serving meal meant that today would not be a training day, and there was some relief in that, but not much. Often, non-training days meant hours of testing or time spent in total isolation locked inside a sensory deprivation tank. At least they no longer interrogated her. She had stopped speaking altogether after eleven months and nothing they did to her could convince her to talk. They considered that a complete success.

The first two months had been nothing but horribly invasive tests and interrogation. They knew she hadn't been in Fort Rozz and they wanted to know who had sheltered her. They wanted to know why you'd rescued that plane. You had changed your name before moving to National City, and they didn't know that Alex was your sister. They would never learn that from you.

Alex. Kara tried to picture her face but it was fuzzy. She tried to form the name but it felt foreign in her mouth. Vicious fight training and isolation and torture had stolen her thoughts. They were reduced to fear of what would happen next and when her next meal would come.

General Lane's Department of Extra-Normal Operations wrung all the information they could from the first Kryptonians they caught, and then handed all the rest over to the two high-powered companies. Of course first they had let a few prisoners escape. The most violent offenders. Those rogue Kryptonians had created havoc in Metropolis, killing people and destroying property until the armed forces swooped in to subdue them with Kryptonite weapons. The move had assured that the public agreed when Kryptonians were declared hostile entities to be immediately jailed.

The Alpha fights had come later and The Cadmus and LordTech Corporations were the two main players but both of them had received their Kryptonian fighters from the government. They had been offered up as test subjects - for a heft fee of course - with the DEO claiming that the prisoners would be well-treated. After Cadmus and LordTech had run their tests and experiments on the first few prisoners, there had still been plenty of Kryptonians left, and more still running free. It had been easy to present the fights as voluntary acts that the aliens participated in because they were inherently violent. Before long they were as popular as baseball.

A few people objected. People who had known good Kryptonians. Had known Superman. But those people and their demonstrations were silenced until only fringe groups and a scattered few journalists still fought to have them stopped.

In her more lucid moments Kara wondered when they would enter her in her first televised fight. Then she wondered if her foster sister and mother would watch it. Her foster father had been killed during one of the first demonstrations against the fights. The Cadmus Corporation had insisted that it had been an accident. Kara had felt responsible, knowing that Jeremiah Danvers might not have been so invested in the treatment of aliens if he hadn't been sharing his home with one.

The cell door rattled again and Kara rushed to put her tray back on the shelf in the door before retreating to her mattress, and wrapping her arms around her knees. She rocked slightly, stealing some comfort from the action before whatever horrors were to come.

Harsh light bathed the cell as the door swung open with a loud clang that made Kara flinch despite how many times she'd heard it. Or perhaps because of that. A moment later and the light was partially blocked by the form of two men who entered her cell. One was a guard who always treated Kara with casual roughness. The other man was Maxwell Lord and Kara felt her meal rising in her throat, her gut clenching and churning while her heart pounded. She tried to make herself even smaller as he walked towards her as if he was simply looking at an interesting experiment. And perhaps in his mind, he was.

"The doc said she could be moved down to the general population now," the guard said, voice deep and too loud in the small space.

Kara had heard the doctor say the same thing the last time she'd seen him. She'd been strapped down while a shard of Kryptonite was inserted deep into her womb and after a week of bleeding and pain that made her scream herself hoarse, she had been strapped down again. The Kryptonite had been removed, the doctor had made his pronouncement and in the dim recesses of her mind that still held her sanity, Kara had known that she would never have children.

Now Maxwell Lord crouched on one knee on the cold concrete and reached out to touch Kara's face. She knew better than to flinch away.

"No, I don't think so," Lord said as he shook his head in some secret amusement. "This one was never in Fort Rozz. This one is special. I've been waiting for her to complete her training. I have the perfect opponent for her and I don't want her damaged beforehand."

The two men left soon afterward and Kara held herself tighter and started rocking again, trying not to think about the future.

Her respite was short-lived and within the hour, her cell door was pushed open again and two female guards entered and hauled her to her feet. That meant she was being brought to the showers and she stood erect, as she had been trained, and kept her eyes on the ground as they led her through the cold, bright-lit hallways. The female guards weren't nice. They showed her no kindness. But they weren't as brutal as their male counterparts and Kara had no fear of being pushed or tripped or otherwise abused as she showered.

The soap was utilitarian and came from dispensers attached to the wall, but this time one of the guards handed her a bar of moisturizing soap and small bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Kara's curiosity has been largely purged, but the scent of the soap and the slick feeling of conditioner through her hair was soothing in a world that had never given her comfort without it being a trap. She finished her shower, wrapped herself in the cotton robe one of the guards passed to her, and stepped out, eyes down, shoulders back. Ready.

They took her down another long hallway and then into a small, almost cozy room, with mirrors on one wall and a salon chair in the center. Now Kara was confused and confusion is frightening and she just wanted to run back to her cell, but the guards had tight hold of her arms and one of them dialed her bracelets back up again.

"This is the half-starved, half-beaten girl I'm supposed to turn into a model?" came a voice from the corner, and Kara chanced a look through her lashes and saw a short, middle-aged woman, dressed to the nines and perfectly made up.

She didn't hear what the guards said, she just let herself be led to the chair and for the next hour, the woman brushed and styled her hair, and did her make-up to perfection. She even managed to fully cover the bruise at her temple that stubbornly refused to heal even when they turned her bracelets down.

"Well, I don't know exactly what Max has planned for this one, but you can't say she doesn't look like perfection," the woman said as she spun Kara around to face the guards who had remained by the door.

The two guards just muttered replies before commanding Kara to follow them.

Another room, another middle-aged woman, and Kara emerged dressed in a full spandex catsuit, all black save for stripes of blue down the sides and rings of red around her neck and wrists.

It was past lunchtime now, but in the next room, a beautifully plated meal was laid out, with more food than Kara could even remember. She wanted to rush to the table, but she knew it was likely a trick, and stood stock still, the tear in one eye quickly blinked away before she could be punished for it.

"Go ahead and eat," one of the guards told her, prodding her in the side as added motivation.

Trick or no, Kara could not resist the urge to finally, finally, eat enough, and she devoured everything on the table in less than fifteen minutes. When she looked up from her last plate, Maxwell Lord was standing on the other side of the table, just staring at her. She blinked twice before focusing back on the table.

"No, no, go ahead and look at me," he said, almost jovial. "Today's a special day for you, after all."

He knew she wouldn't speak so he just continued as if she had asked him why.

"Well, your first fight, of course! And a very special one. Very private, no cameras this time, just some people who have paid a great amount of money to see how I turn an ordinary girl into a killing machine."

She flinched at that, but realized the truth in his words.

"Now, come along, come along," he said, motioning for her to stand. "Don't want to keep them waiting, now do we?"

The guards still flanked her as Lord walked ahead, leading down a hall Kara had never seen before. At the end was a door and he opened it with a flourish before ushering her inside. It was nearly pitch black, save for the glow of her bracelets, but even that dimmed as she felt them lowered until they were almost off. Strength surged through the young woman, and a year and a half ago, she would have bolted forward, punching through walls or ceilings to escape. But now she just stood, waiting for further instructions.

A few short minutes later and the lights in the room flickered on, illuminating the fighting ring and the rows of seats off to one side. Maxwell Lord introduced her merely as fighter K, and Kara took up a fighting stance. In some part of her mind she thought that this could be a kill or be killed situation and wondered if she really wanted to remain on Earth rather than succumbing and entering Rao's light. But her training and conditioning kicked in to push those thoughts away. Her eyes hardened as her fists tightened and she would not be losing this fight.

"For our other competitor, we have a bit of a wild-card," Max's voice echoed through speakers set high in the walls. "A human woman we've been training for almost the same amount of time as K. Some might say that isn't a fair fight, but I think you will be pleasantly surprised."

A spotlight shone on a door opposite from Kara and when it was opened, after a dramatic pause, a woman, dressed similarly to her, but wearing a sort of exoskeleton tinged a sickly kryptonite green, was pushed inside.

"Oh my God, Kara."

And Kara was staring into the eyes of her sister and realizing that only one of them would leave the room alive.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The two women began circling each other, but it was almost instantly clear that neither one was prepared to make the first move. Maxwell Lord had anticipated that and the transmitters he'd had fitted into their ears crackled to life with the sound of his voice.

"Danvers sisters, together again," he said, and the cruelty-laced sarcasm oozed through his tone. "Yes, that's right. Kara Zor-El Danvers, I do know your real name."

That woman made no outward sign of acknowledgement, she simply continued to step carefully around the perimeter of the ring, never taking her eyes off of her dark-haired foster sister.

"And Alexandra, well I suppose you've known all along that your sister was here."

Alex couldn't contain the scoffing huff of air that pushed through her nose, even if she knew she would likely be punished for it later.

"Now these people have paid for a fight - to the death - and you two are going to give it to them. Do you know why?" he paused but of course there was no reply. "Because if you don't then you will both be very, very sorry. Alex, look at your sister. Look into her eyes. You've seen the videos of what we've done to turn her into this."

And Alex looked - stared - into blue eyes that had always held a soft look for her. But Kara was gone and she didn't know what this new version of her sister was capable of.

"If you refuse to fight, then what she has already gone through will look like nothing, and she will be begging for her alien god to just let her die."

Alex stepped, right leg crossing over left as she mirrored her sister's actions. If she hadn't already shed all her tears while watching the inhumane way Kara had been treated, then she might have had to blink them away now.

"K. Kara Zor-El. You can see that Alex still has fight left in her."

It was true. Perhaps Maxwell Lord had thought it would be more entertaining if one of his fighters still had her soul. Alex had undergone severe and punishing training at LordTech, but she had not been subjected to the same mental torture that had been most painful for the Kryptonian.

"If you don't fight her then I will break her. And I can see that you do know who she is. Some part of your mind still cares for her or you would have already attacked. But I am telling you that she will be completely insane by the time we finish with her and then we will kill her in front of your eyes anyway."

Kara blinked rapidly, her breath coming short and fast. Lord was right, and the good, loving, caring part of her mind was struggling to break free from her conditioning. She didn't want to hurt Alex. She didn't want to kill her any more than those young people who had been presented to her again and again. But she couldn't allow her sister to be changed. To be turned into - her.

"Now I am going to count to three, ladies, and then you will start this fight and you will not stop until only one of you is standing. And please consider that whoever dies will no doubt be the true winner here."

"One."

"Two."

Neither Alex nor Kara heard Lord's last word because they were already rushing towards each other, feet pounding on the floor, breath harsh and loud in the otherwise silent arena.

Kara went immediately for an offensive attack, raising her arms to bring them down like hammers against Alex's collarbones. But Alex was prepared for that and she sank into a crouch and spun, her foot hooking Kara's left ankle and bringing the other woman slamming into the floor.

The rose in tandem only a heartbeat later, Kara's hands fisted at her sides, Alex's eyes searching, calculating, looking for any weakness. She knew that the Kryptonite in her suit would eventually weaken Kara, but not yet. Not much. She was still stronger than a human and Alex couldn't let her land a blow.

Alex launched herself forward, and Kara lunged, expecting a shoulder to her solar plexus. At the last moment, the dark-haired woman dropped to her knees and slid between Kara's legs, swiveling and rising as soon as she was through, and throwing herself at her sister's back, arms wrapping around strong shoulders, green light throbbing against the pale skin of Kara's neck.

It was enough to sap a bit of her strength, to bring her closer to Alex's level, but she quickly dropped to one knee and flung Alex over her shoulder, sending her pounding to the mat, air forced from her lungs.

There were only two thoughts in her mind. She had to win. She had to win. She couldn't let Alex be hurt anymore.

She stalked over to her sister and easily grabbed her arm as the other woman attempted to gain her footing. She used that arm as leverage, forcing it up and under Alex's chin, cutting off her air, crushing her throat. Alex wheezed, feet scrabbling against the floor, barely touching as Kara lifted her up against her chest. She let her body relax and when Kara's stance loosened, she grabbed the back of Kara's neck while forcing her own body down and into the ground. The move threw Kara off balance and she rolled to the side as Alex put space between them.

It was Alex's turn to attack. She was not going to let Maxwell Lord win. She was not going to allow her sister to be pushed into becoming a monster. She ran forward with a scream pouring from her lungs, and then pushed off the ground, leg kicking out to catch Kara in the chest. It threw the blonde backward and Alex pressed her advantage, sending blows to her face and then an almost crippling kick to her thigh.

But Alex was only human, and the Kryptonite had not done more than dull Kara's strength, while Alex's was rapidly failing. When Alex kicked out again, aiming for Kara's throat, Kara grabbed her ankle and twisted, sending Alex to the ground with an agonized scream as the tendons in her knee were wrenched and torn. Then Kara was above her, hauling her up, forearm around her neck, hand on the back of her head, fisted into dark hair, ready to snap her neck. Alex struggled and clawed at Kara's face but there was a look in the blue eyes staring down at her. A pained resignation that Alex recognized. She stopped clawing and instead wrapped her hand around the back of Kara's neck, forcing her to meet her eyes.

"Do it, Kara. Do it. I forgive you. Don't forget that. I forgive you, Kara Danvers."

And Alex felt the impossible pressure against her neck, knew that she was dead, wondered if she would hear the crack before she hit the ground, wondered if it would hurt.

But suddenly, that small, desperate bit of sanity in Kara's mind pushed forward, snapping the carefully constructed LordTech control, breaking free on a horrible, terrible scream that rattled the doors and had the viewers covering their ears. For months at the start of her training, she had been put in positions where using her powers would spare her sudden pain, but then using them would result in even greater punishment. They had repeated that treatment over and over again until she would do nothing without express permission.

But that scream. That unholy, tortured scream, broke that lock that had been placed in her mind and she opened her eyes wide, pure white light pouring from them, burning smoking red lines along the walls, the ceiling, the floor and sending the viewers diving for the exit of their prime seating area. Then, one after the other she snapped the bracelets that could control her and hurled them away.

Maxwell Lord was shouting commands in her ear but she didn't even hear him. The sound of her blood rushing through her drowned out all else as she used her x-ray vision on all the walls and then ran towards one, fist poised to punch through. She punched and grasped and tore through sheet-metal and drywall and brick until the evening light was visible and then she reared back and with one mighty kick, knocked out an exit.

She could hear again then, could hear guards rushing and Alex screaming for her to run, and Maxwell Lord still uttering commands and promises of torment into her ear. Kara looked back at her sister, collapsed on the floor and there was no way she was leaving her there. As guards slammed open the doors and poured into the room, Kara, in a motion that was only a blur of color, sped back, scooped Alex into her arms and was out and free before the guards could even take another step inside.

Alex was sobbing in her arms, telling her to leave her and pounding on her back and chest, but Kara just ran. She ran as fast as she could, even with the Kryptonite of Alex's suit sapping at her powers. She couldn't fly, but she could run, and so she ran. Ran deep into the night. Ran even as Alex passed out in her arms. Ran until Metropolis was far behind her. Ran until the lights of National City loomed ahead.

Kara slowed only slightly when she reached the outskirts of the city. She used her vision to get a better view of the city's layout and then she sped on, Alex seeming only a light weight in her arms now as she moved through dark streets and avoided the few cars on the road. She stopped in front of the National City Memorial Hospital and laid her sister down in the entryway before letting out another scream that she knew would bring help to Alex's side. She didn't wait to see the orderlies and nurses running through the sliding glass doors and kneeling beside the fallen woman at their feet.

Instead she ran again. Ran until she spied green and trees and the park that reminded her of Midvale and happiness and freedom. The park was completely deserted and Kara finally felt her injuries throbbing and her super-powers failing as she stumbled towards the area of thickest growth. There was a stone footbridge and a culvert and a drainage tunnel, now mostly dry in the heat of the summer. Into that small, hard space, Kara walked, with shoulders drooping and mind a whirl of instinct and the desire to survive. She needed quiet. She needed shelter. And she fell asleep against the hard curve of the tunnel, her head resting on pebbled ground.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Catherine Jane Grant took note of where she was in her life every single day. She was appreciative for her place in the world, but mindful of how much it had taken - physically, emotionally, mentally - to get there. She was also mindful of the effort it took to remain at the top of her career, and indeed gain even higher heights. The toll was great, but she was driven to meet and exceed the expectations of everyone around her, and most importantly, herself.

She had fought to rise from gossip columnist to serious reporter, and then to news anchor, television personality, author, and now, the head of her own world-wide media empire. Most people, at that point in their lives, and at the relatively young age of 49, would have taken a step back to enjoy all that they had worked to achieve. Most people were not Catherine Jane Grant.

Currently she was in the midst of a conference call and discussing the abject failure that was the east coast branch of her empire. Abject failure being a relative term, since the print and television media put out from that branch generally garnered the number one viewership and readership spots in the region, and had only recently slipped to number two. However, Cat Grant refused to accept less than the best when the best was clearly within reach.

As she paced her office while speaking to the head of the eastern office and his crew of underlings, she was mentally making a list of which were dead-weight which would have to be disposed of. She would contact legal and have severance packages drawn up for them, and moderately glowing references. She demanded perfection, but could still acknowledge the work that had been done in the past. It simply wasn't quite good enough any longer, if the numbers were to be believed.

If she was honest with herself, she knew that part of the reason for the eastern branch's sudden dip was her complete refusal to allow any of her people report favorably on the expansion of the Alpha Fights to the eastern seaboard. The other papers and news shows had daily stories about the winners and losers, complete with graphic photos and positive editorials. Cat would never allow that in any media that bore her name.

And since the National City branch had no trouble maintaining its number one spot even without such coverage, she saw no reason why the eastern branch couldn't do the same.

The call ended and she dropped to her chair with a roll of her eyes and a heavy sigh. Incompetence spoiled her appetite and it was almost lunchtime.

Almost lunchtime, and Kara Zor-El Danvers had still not woken from her deep, if troubled, sleep. The fight, followed by the long trek from Metropolis had sapped every last bit of her Kryptonian super powers, and now she was just a battered, half-starved human with a body struggling to heal itself.

It was after one in the afternoon before her eyes finally opened, the instant disorientation at her surroundings sending a panic signal through her body. She jolted upright and almost struck her head on the top of her little safe space. The sun shone brightly outside, though the tunnel was still cast in dark shadows, and she knew that her healing would be aided by exposure to sunlight. Yet her heart pounded even harder at the thought of leaving this new shelter, this self-made cage. Going out into the light - into freedom - was something she hadn't done in almost two years, and the idea that she was currently at liberty to do whatever she pleased was terrifying. Because in fact she wasn't free at all. She knew that if anyone saw her and realized that she was a trained Alpha, then she would be captured and sent back to LordTech. Even the thought of that made her stomach revolt and she barely managed to keep herself from vomiting.

At least she knew that Alex was safe. Taking humans who had not been imprisoned and volunteered for Alpha training was illegal, tantamount to kidnapping. Even if Maxwell Lord could somehow erase all proof that Alex had ever been there, he would not risk taking her again. Alex was safe, and even if she never saw her again, that was all that mattered.

Looking down at herself, the first thing she realized was that she needed something else to wear, to at least cover the top of her fight suit. The bottom half resembled leggings or jogging pants, but combined with to top, it made a suspicious picture even if most Alphas were less formally attired. There were also her scars to consider. The Kryptonite enhanced cuffs had been four inches wide and emblazoned with the LordTech trademark. That trademark was now burned into her skin. The Kryptonite had traced the path of the logo and the long term contact meant that even if her healing powers returned, it would take a long time for those scars to heal. Until then, she needed to hide them at all cost. Even standing there alone, and hidden, she self-consciously tugged on her sleeves until they reached to the middle of her hands.

Her stomach rumbled, and she wrapped one arm around her middle, but still made no move to leave the tunnel. It was just too risky. It was the middle of the day and there were too many people around. She would just have to wait until the middle of the night and then sneak out and try to find clothing and food. The idea of stealing those things was anathema to her, but she knew that was likely what it would come down to. She needed to be able to eat and go out into the sunlight so that she could continue to heal and then, when her powers returned, she would leave and go far, far away where Max Lord would never find her.

As the afternoon stretched on, however, Kara's objectives became much less clear. At LordTech, thinking had been discouraged by savage means. Emotion, courage, any spark of independence had been squashed. Trying to organize her thoughts now was difficult, but she kept coming back to the same horrible problem. She was an Alpha now. However much she had fought against it, she was now trained, conditioned, pressed into a mold, both mental and physical, that brought forth her most basic survival instincts and dampened any higher level emotions that might interfere with her ability to ruthlessly lash out at any perceived threat.

LordTech had made those threats easy to identify; they came in the form of other Alphas whom she was ordered to fight or kill or else face brutal punishment or even death. Out in the world though, those threats were harder to predict. She realized that she could be triggered to lash out and seriously injure someone who merely bumped into or frightened her. Without someone in her head, telling her exactly what to do, she was a danger to everyone she might encounter.

Sitting with her back against hard concrete, and her head bent to rest on raised knees, she tried to remember the person she had been. She remembered, at the beginning, fighting so hard to tell herself over and over again that she was a good person. That whatever else happened, she could be that person again. Now she wasn't so sure. With enough time, she hoped that was true, but it would have to be time spent away from society, and the thought of that much isolation was frightening. Her need to be helpful, to be useful, to be a good friend, and sister, and daughter, and employee, had been so integral to her personality that she wasn't sure she could regain herself without being able to fulfill those roles. She feared that she might at best return to some sort of partial version of the old Kara, one who had to forever live apart from those she loved or risk hurting them and losing what was left of her mind.

The sun began to set and Kara watched, cheek resting on her still-raised knees, seeing the tiny portion of visible sky go from pale blue to yellow to orange and then streaks of red and purple. She tried to remember when the sight of something like that would have stirred something in her heart and made fingers itch for a paintbrush. Now it just registered as molecules in the atmosphere, scattering the sun's rays and resulting in a range of colors. There was more pollution than magic involved. A tear rolled down and struck her knee, and she watched and waited for deep night when she could go out, get what she required and escape from humanity, as much for its sake as for her own.

Cat Grant had watched the same sunset, and had a similar thought despite the fact that her life, while challenging, had been ultimately quite blessed. Her lack of awe wasn't caused by trauma, it was brought on by a near-constant state of urgency. She didn't have time to admire sunsets when she was planning where to take CatCo Worldwide Media next. The sunset passed, while she sipped on a glass of bourbon and typed up hasty emails and wrote notes on magazine layouts. She had another conference call, this time with Japan, and then she had to make an appearance at a post-symphony cocktail party at a hotel she could see over the rim of her glass.

With a sigh, she put down her glass, gathered her things and retreated to the office. The sunset was over and her call was about to begin. She would never admit - and perhaps she didn't even realize - that despite her jaded view of it, the sunset was what had inspired her to work out on her balcony.

An hour later and the painted sky was a distant memory as Cat stalked around her desk and over to her current assistant who had just informed her that her car was not waiting for her. In fact the car service had neglected to mark down that she needed a nine o'clock pick-up (or else her assistant had neglected to inform them of that fact) and now it would be at least another half an hour before a car would arrive. Cat glared at Mark, whose name was actually Matt, and he could see his termination written in her eyes.

"I could call a taxi?" he suggested doubtfully.

"And sit in a hermetically sealed cesspool of infectious diseases for twenty minutes? I think not," Cat said with a look of revulsion. "But, never let it be said that Cat Grant was anything but self-reliant. I'll simply have to walk through the park. The hotel is just on the other side and I'll probably get there faster than if I did allow you to call a rolling germ-mobile."

"Um, but, Ms Grant, you shoes aren't really..." Matt started, and then trailed off as he saw Cat's eyes harden to stones as she glared at him.

"Are you seriously questioning my choice of footwear? I'll have you know that I was wearing stilettos when you were still in diapers and could probably run a marathon in these Prada heels. So you may leave now. Your presence is just causing more or a delay."

She waved her hand at him and he was quick to take the opportunity to scurry back to his desk. By the time Cat had walked through her office snatching up her phone, tablet and purse, Matt was long gone. She rolled her eyes while walking past his desk. He'd been working for her for nearly a month, which was considered long-term by HR nowadays, but she didn't expect him to last out the week.

The elevator ride down was smooth, and Cat checked her messages and called her son, Carter, to wish him a good night before she stepped off into the lobby. The security guard there gave a pleasant farewell, and she made a dismissive remark before exiting to the National City twilight. The east entrance to Memorial Park was just at the end of the block, and her quick strides brought her there with minimal effort. She was right when she said that she could probably beat a cab through the city, with traffic still tangled up despite the later hour.

Foot traffic through the park, however, was minimal and she was glad for that. As a relatively well-known personality in her city, she was used to a certain amount of public admiration in the form of autograph seekers or just people wanting to meet and greet. It was something she had a surprising amount of tolerance for, given her impatience in nearly every other area of her life, but at the moment she just wanted to get through the park, shake a few hands at the National City Hilton and then get home to her son.

It was her narrow forward focus that was perhaps responsible for a certain lack of attention to everything else around her. The park was generally considered a very safe place, even at night, and the bone-rattling shove, followed by the tug at her shoulder, came as a harsh shock.

"Oh no you don't!" Cat shouted as she instinctively grabbed onto her handbag's long shoulder strap.

The action caused her would-be mugger to jerk to a stop while spinning back to face her.

"This is a five thousand dollar hand stitched Italian bag and you are not stealing it," she shouted angrily.

"Well, thanks for the info, lady, I'll keep it in mind," he said as he yanked on the bag, nearly wresting it from Cat's grasp.

But Cat Grant was, as she had earlier said, self-reliant. She had studied Krav Magra after being embedded during the Gulf War, and while she was rusty now, the greasy-haired miscreant wasn't expecting the strong kick she sent into his stomach. He doubled over, dropping the bag as he did so, and Cat ran like hell towards the park entrance, knowing better than to continue to engage.

The seam of her tight skirt had split when she'd kicked out at the mugger, and she was able to move fast down the concrete sidewalk. She had just passed the footbridge when she cursed aloud as her heel snapped off and sent her skidding onto her knees. In some dim part of her mind she cursed again at the idea that her incompetent assistant had been right about the shoes. She had no time for any more thoughts because her assailant was on her again, yanking her up by one arm tugging her close, fetid breath hot against her cheek and a knife now gripped in his free hand.

"All I wanted was the purse, lady, but if you want to dance, I'm always in the mood," he sneered, pulling her off the path and onto the grass.

He had just backhanded her and thrown her to the ground, when suddenly a blonde-haired fury was slamming into him, sending them both crashing to the ground, where she proceeded to punch him in the jaw. She hadn't made a sound and the man was shocked from the blow and the surprise, but he almost instantly regained his wits and brought one knee up into her stomach.

Kara gasped as the air was forced from her lungs, but her training didn't allow for reactions to pain. It didn't allow for self-preservation or mercy either, and she was about to start pounding his head into the hard ground in a way she knew would crack his skull. He must have seen something in her eyes, whether his death reflected back at him or the complete lack of emotion that turned her face into an expressionless mask. At the same time she yanked on his shoulders forward before the fatal downward blow, he jerked beneath her and his arm swung wildly, punching into her back and shoulder. It didn't save him completely, but the impact left him unconscious rather than dead, and Kara rolled off of him and smoothly went from crouching to standing.

Cat had watched the entire fight, which had lasted less than a minute, with her breath held and her hands pressed to her chest. Now she turned her eyes to her savior and opened her mouth to thank her.

Kara was staring at her as well, trying to place her face from some far distant memory, but then the insistent burning running through her back took over her thoughts. She reached back over her left shoulder and felt it then, the knife still stuck half-way into her shoulder blade, scraping against her scapula. She pulled it out, and then held it towards Cat as if confused about what she should do. With her vision dimming and her mind a swirl of memories. She fell to her knees and just before the world ceased to exist for her, she wondered if Rao would finally allow her to pass into his light.

Cat Grant was not the type of woman who screamed like some horror movie heroine, but if she had been, the sight of Kara's fist, wet with blood and stretched out to her with a knife clenched within, would certainly have triggered a deafening shriek. Instead, the second after Kara fell, Cat rushed forward, feeling for a pulse in the blonde's neck and then rolling her over so that she would be able to breathe better. If the position put some pressure on the wounds, then so much the better.

She felt up and down the girl's hips, searching for a phone, a wallet, something, but there weren't even pockets and then as Cat's eyes scanned for any identifying marks, she realized why. Kara's sleeves had risen up during the struggle, and Cat knew that scars like those came from only one thing.

Rising to her feet again, she ditched her remaining heel and ran towards the park entrance, pulling her phone out as she did so.

"Yes, yes, connect me to Yellow Cab," she snapped and then a few moments later, "I need a lift at the west entrance of Memorial Park. Two passengers."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Cat waited by the park entrance for an agonizing ten minutes before the cab pulled up to the curb.

"You called for a ride?" called the driver as he rolled down his window and leaned out.

"Yes, I did, but the other passenger, my - friend," she said, only partially stumbling over the word, "was injured by a mugger near the footbridge. You need to help me carry her here."

"What? C'mon, lady, I've got easier fares than this waiting. I don't need to go wandering through the park."

"Does this change your mind any?" Cat asked as she waved a hundred dollar bill in front of the man's face.

He put the car in park and quickly exited, giving an upward tug on his baggy jeans and pointing vaguely into the park.

"Yeah, that'll do it," he said. "Name's Phil. Wanna clue me in on yours?"

"Not particularly."

Phil let out an exasperated grunt before asking, "So where's this friend of yours?"

Cat rolled her eyes and let him down the path. When she got within sight of the fallen woman, she broke into a slow jog, surprised at the level of relief she felt at seeing her rescuer. She had half-feared that the woman would waken and bolt, despite her injuries and obvious exhaustion. Cat knew what happened to escaped Alphas. They were returned to their "owner" and from there Cat couldn't imagine the level of punishment that might be leveled against them. She looked Kara over, checking her pulse and breathing again and glad to see that they both appeared stable.

"She's with you?" the driver asked, incredulously, as he approached.

"As far as you're concerned, yes," Cat said tersely. "And that useless pile of flesh over there is the man who attacked us."

The driver muttered something under his breath, but knelt down to gather Kara into his arms while Cat hovered nearby, ready to tell him how he was doing it wrong.

"Hey, you didn't say nothing about her bleeding all over the upholstery."

Kara had just been gently deposited onto the back seat, and the driver was looking down at the dark stains that now marked one of his arms.

"I'll pay you enough to have the damn cab detailed," Cat snapped, "Now let's get going."

She slid in beside Kara, balancing the woman gingerly against her shoulder. She didn't want her flopping all over the car as they navigated the streets, but she also wasn't prepared to hold her any closer than that. She gave out her address and then turned her attention to the mystery woman, monitoring her breathing and pulse and hoping that her wounds weren't as deep as she feared.

It took twenty minutes to get to Cat's apartment building and another ten for the cabbie to find parking, hoist Kara out of the car and follow Cat up the elevator. She unlocked the door to her penthouse and ushered the burly and slightly unkempt man inside. He was the sort of man she normally wouldn't allow within ten feet of her private space, but she didn't see that she had much of a choice.

Thankfully Carter and his nanny had already retired for the night, and the odd trio moved through the dimly lit living room, down the hallway and into one of Cat's guest rooms. She motioned toward the bed and Phil laid Kara down on top of the covers, then followed Cat back into the living room.

"Okay," he said, once they were standing near the door, "I don't you, I don't know the chick in there and I don't know whatever kinda kink you're into, but don't you think she'd be better off at a hospital."

Cat thought about the marks on Kara's wrists, marks she had been careful to cover before Phil had seen her, and replied, "No, no I don't. And I'm paying you to drive and carry, not hand out medical advice."

She dug into her purse - that Italian purse with the now slightly-damaged strap - and pulled out another hundred dollar bill.

"Now," she said as she opened the door, "I'll thank you to leave and forget you ever saw any of this."

Phil just shook his head and ducked out the door, muttering again as he pressed the button for the elevator.

As soon as she'd shut the door, Cat had rushed back to the guest room, phone in hand. She set it on the nightstand while she looked the blonde woman over one more time. She didn't want to hurt her, but she needed to see how badly she was bleeding before she made a call. With hesitant motions, she pushed on the woman's injured shoulder just enough so that she could peek at the sliced fabric of her top. The damp spots, barely recognizable as blood against the black fabric, were larger, but not as large as she'd feared, and there wasn't a substantial amount of blood on the bed's coverlet. She eased Kara back down to a flat position and took up her phone.

"Cat? Why are you calling me at ten o'clock on a Tuesday?" said the man who answered.

"I need a favor, James."

"Another house call? Cat, I told you, I'm not a family physician. Can't you call Carter's regular doctor? There must be someone on call," James replied, remembering that the last time Cat Grant had called in a favor it had been because her son had a mild case of the flu.

"I'm not calling about Carter."

"Something's wrong with you?" he asked, sounding more concerned.

"Yes. I've got an injured woman with scars on her wrists passed out in my guest room."

"I can be there in fifteen minutes."

Cat nodded without answering, and hung up the phone. She wavered between wanting to keep watch over her rescuer, and wanting to keep James from ringing the bell and waking up Carter. His nanny slept like a log, so she wasn't worried about her. In the end, she waited with Kara for another few minutes, just watching her chest rise and fall with her slow breathing, and then hurried out to the living room and opened the door, watching the elevator directly opposite.

James Olson was a man of his word, and almost fifteen minutes to the second, the elevator dinged and he stepped out. Cat just motioned to him briskly, before shutting and bolting her penthouse door after ushering him inside.

James had started out his career back in Metropolis, working at the same paper as Cat, The Daily Planet. He had started working there as a runner while he was still in high school. Cat had already moved on by then, but she still paid visits to her old stomping grounds - mainly to gloat - and had met James during one of them. He had been friends with Superman before he'd vanished, and afterwards, he had finished out high school and moved to National City.

Cat had been happy to hire him as a junior photojournalist while he attended college, but he'd soon decided that he needed to go into a field where he could more directly help people. He was still so stricken by the disappearance of his friend and needed to feel that he was carrying on in his memory. It really hadn't taken a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist to suss out that his other best friend - Clark Kent - had been Superman's mild alter ego, making the loss doubly hard. Clark had been a friend of Cat's back when she and Lois Lane were fighting their way up the ladder and keeping busy being the best of frenemies. Sadness over his loss was something that she and James shared, though they never spoke of it. James had gone back to medical school, with Cat's support, and had just started practicing in National City.

"So where is she? And are you sure about the scars?"

"She's back here, and yes. The LordTech logo is rather hard to miss," Cat said as she brought him to the guest room furthest from the living room.

She pushed open the door slowly, in case the woman had, by some miracle, regained consciousness, but no, she was still lying there, still breathing.

James took one step inside and froze.

"What? What is it? I already told you she was an Alpha. This can't be that much of a shock," Cat said from beside him.

"It's just that she doesn't exactly look like a typical Alpha," James replied.

It was true. In the first place, most of the Alphas were males. Then, while the first Alphas had been Kryptonians and had, at least in those first months, been in prime physical condition, over time they had become scarred and rough looking from repeated fights and harsh training and living conditions. And other aliens - many of them more brutal in appearance than the average human, or just plain strange - had been captured and trained, leading to the public's perception of all Alphas being almost animalistic fighters. In comparison, Kara was a slender woman with fine-boned features, and while her skin bore bruises, the only scars were those on her wrists. In her unconscious state, she looked like a perfectly harmless human.

Cat gave a slight shrug. "You're right about that," she said, "but she almost smashed my attacker's head like a grape."

The two of them approached the bed, a mix of caution and sympathy ruling their actions. Cat stood near the end of the bed while James gingerly sat down next to Kara's hip.

"Oh my God," rushed out in a whisper as he got a closer look at Kara's face.

"What? She's still breathing, isn't she?" Cat said in a slightly panicky voice.

"Yeah... Yes, she's still breathing. It's not that," James replied, slowly, shaking his head as a sorrowful expression passed over him, with memories being pulled to the forefront of his mind. "I know who she is."

"You know her? That's impossible. She doesn't look like the normal criminals they draft into fighting, so she's obviously Kryptonian."

"Yeah, you're right. She's Kryptonian."

"Then how do you know her?"

"I don't really know her. I just know who she is - well, who I think she is. I've only seen pictures, and she was much younger."

"Could you pretend that I really don't have the patience for this and skip to the lead?"

"I think she's Superman's cousin. She landed here just before Fort Rozz, and he hid her away with a family up the coast. He only showed me a couple of pictures one time. He disappeared a few weeks later."

"Well wherever she came from, she's here now, and she's got a couple of deep stab wounds in her upper back."

"Help me roll her over so I can get a look at them," James said, settling into his doctor persona as he put his medical bag down on the floor beside the bed.

Kara was soon positioned on her stomach, with her fight suit cut open from waist to neck, and the expanse of her back laid bare. Her skin showed signs of fading bruises, but the most noticeable injuries were the two sluggishly bleeding wounds near the top of her shoulder.

"They don't look as bad as I expected," Cat said, with some surprise.

"Well the cuffs the fighters wear are designed to suppress their powers. I'm guessing between that and whatever else happened to her between when she escaped and now, her powers were depleted. But now they're beginning to come back and her body is repairing itself."

"So she'll be all right?"

"I really don't know for sure, but I assume so. I'll clean out the wounds and put in a couple of stitches to make sure they stay closed. Cl - Superman blew out his powers a couple of times and they usually came back within a few days."

"James," Cat said, not unkindly, "I know that Clark was Superman. I'm a journalist. And also not a completely blind idiot."

With a sigh, James' shoulders hunched forward and he said, "Yeah. Yeah, he was."

"So you said you know who this girl is? Do you know her name?"

"Kara. Kara Zor-El. I don't know who she was staying with. And for all I know, I'm dead wrong. But I remember - in the picture, the girl had dark blonde hair, a sad, serious face, and a little scar right between her eyes," he said as he reached forward where Kara's face rested with one cheek against the pillow. He lightly touched a mark near her left eyebrow. "God. She was only a few years younger than me when she landed."

"How - how long do you think LordTech had her?" Cat asked hesitantly.

"I have no idea. The scars on her wrists are deep, but I don't have anything to compare against." He looked at Cat then, making sure to catch her eye so that he had her full attention. "You know how dangerous she could be."

Cat nodded.

"Yes. But you just finished telling me she's Superman's little cousin. She's not some violent alien prisoner - and you know how I feel about even them."

"Yes, and you know I agree with you, but if she's been at LordTech... Cat, we have no idea what they did to her. How long she was there. How well she was "trained"."

"Well I guess I'll find out then. And in case you hadn't noticed, I'm not some shrinking violet. She can stay here while she heals and I can work with her. UN-train her."

James just shook his head sadly.

"It's not that easy and you know it, Cat. You know the only Alpha fighter anyone was even partially successful at rehabilitating, eventually attacked the person trying to help her and then flew off to God knows where."

"And what other suggestions do you have? Send her back to Maxwell Lord? Let them torture this poor woman some more? Hell, if she escaped then I don't even want to know what he'd do to her if he got his hands on her again."

"Cat..."

"No! She saved my life tonight, James. Without any thought for herself. There must be some good inside her, and I'm not sending her away to be locked up somewhere without even trying to help her."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

There was softness and warmth and light. The softness beneath her cheek and the warmth around her body reminded her of her bed on Krypton, where the synthetic fibers were softer than silk. The light though, it was paler than the red sun of Krypton. Kara's eyelids twitched slightly as her thoughts meandered on the edge of consciousness. Pale sun. Yellow sun. Earth, not Krypton.

And suddenly Kara's heart was racing, her breath lodged in her throat as she sat straight up and her eyes opened, scanning the room, wild with panic. Because softness and warmth and light were not parts of her life on Earth anymore. Yet bright sunshine bathed her in a golden glow, and as she clenched her fists, her fingers clutched a thick down duvet.

She rushed to her feet, looking down to see that her fight suit was gone and she wore only her underwear and a thin t-shirt. She had been conditioned not to react to any bodily discomfort but she yanked the blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around herself, hoping that stealing some physical comfort wasn't going to result in punishment.

This place was nothing like LordTech, but where else could she be? She remembered a woman with tumbling blonde curls and a man, rough and mean. She remembered falling and the look in green eyes as her own slipped closed. At least the woman had been safe. Would she have called an ambulance for her? But this was no hospital. She must have seen her wrists. Must have called LordTech. Because an escaped Alpha was dangerous.

With halting steps, Kara moved to the door, hand poised over the knob, needing to get out, to run, to find out what was happening. Her fingers strained to grab the doorknob, but she couldn't do it. If this was LordTech then why was she in this room? Was this was all an elaborate trap? If she opened the door, would she find grey concrete and guards with heavy fists? Would she find herself in the General Population that those same guards had laughed darkly about. Was the loss of this seeming dream-world to be her final mental torture before Maxwell Lord flung her back into the nightmare of her life?

She couldn't do it. If they wanted her, they would have to come in and drag her out. She spun quickly, feeling the tug of pain in her shoulder. Her powers were still gone. She had no way to defend herself and she looked around for something she could turn into a weapon, but there was nothing. The only light fixture was the ceiling light. The nightstand beside the bed held nothing heavier than a woven coaster and a CatCo magazine. A chair in the corner was positioned to catch the first rays of sun, and there was a well-used throw pillow on the cushion, but nothing else. Nothing that could help her.

In the corner she saw another door, partially open, with tile floor visible. Kara rushed over, half-tripping over her blanket, and fumbling with the light switch on the wall when she got there. It was a bathroom, quietly luxurious with plush towels hanging on the wall and fruit-scented hand wash in a cut-glass pump beside the sink. Even the tub was oversized and had a surround of tiny glass tiles, blue and green and grey like the ocean.

The tub was her destination, and Kara climbed in, the surface cold and hard, but her body shielded somewhat by the blanket she kept tightly around her shoulders. She would see anyone who even approached the door, and she would be ready. They could drag her out, but she wouldn't make it easy. She had seen freedom and she would fight for herself one more time before surrendering to her pitiful fate.

Yet as she sat there, rocking slightly back and forth, hands tangled in the blanket, the panic slowly receded leaving only resignation in its wake.

Her mind drifted to parts of her training. She remembered being strapped to a chair and forced to watch video of other Alphas beaten, tortured, even killed. If she made any show of emotion she was thrust into an isolation chamber with the sounds of pain and suffering echoing against the metal sides and filling her mind. By the end, she had been able to watch the most brutal acts without even blinking. She wasn't normal anymore. She had never been human, but now? Could any small spark of soul left within really overcome that?

Of course the woman had called LordTech. She had watched her kill a man right in front of her. Well, she thought he was still alive, but she had certainly meant to kill him. And it hadn't even given Kara pause. If not for the knife in her shoulder, she knew she would have finished him. Would have watched his blood drip from his ears as she cracked his skull. Would have done the same to anyone she saw as a threat.

But he hadn't been a threat to her. She had done it to save that woman, the one with the green eyes. Kara's face twisted in confusion trying to believe that some innate part of herself had pushed her to help. That she wasn't just an Alpha.

As the sun rose higher over the National City horizon, Kara continued to sit, eyes trained on the doorway, and oblivious to the other occupants of the penthouse.

Carter Grant had been taken to his summer robotics camp, and Cat had given the nanny an early paycheck after informing her that she would be working from home for the remainder of the week. Carter would be spending the following week with his father, so the woman had been happy to start her vacation early. A few phone calls later and Cat was ready to start her work day. She'd told her assistant to change all of her in person meetings to conference calls and had postponed a luncheon with two of the more pompous members of CatCo's board of directors. She admitted to herself that she probably would have found a way to delay that event even if she hadn't had a Kryptonian Alpha fighter lying in her guest room.

She had checked on the Alpha - Kara, she kept reminding herself - several times during the night, but hadn't gone near the guest room since morning had come. She hadn't wanted to rouse any suspicions in Carter. The room was the one closest to her own master bedroom, but it was no longer in regular use even as a guest room. It had once been Carter's nursery and was the smallest room in the penthouse.

James had told Cat that the loss of her powers might cause Kara to sleep for the entire day as she recharged. She had opened all of the blinds and pushed the curtains aside to allow as much sunlight as possible to flood the room. She wasn't exactly sure what she was going to do once Kara was at full-power and full-strength, but she wanted the woman to heal as quickly as possible and the sun would no doubt help.

It was after nine a.m. and Cat still hadn't heard any sounds from inside the guest room, and she assumed that Kara was still sleeping. The other thing that James had told her was that Kara would need more food than the average human, and so she was torn between letting the woman sleep and attempting to wake and feed her. Taking a sip of her coffee before setting it down on her desk, she decided that she would at least check on Kara before she started her work.

When she actually got to the guest room door, Cat became more hesitant. She hadn't been at all worried about checking on Kara during the night. Then, she had known that the woman would no doubt be sleeping, but now, she wasn't at all sure. She wasn't sure, and she didn't know what she would find if Kara was awake. While she'd talked a good game to James, the truth was that she knew that having an Alpha in her home carried serious risks. Sure, Kara had protected her in the park, but that could have been nothing more than instinct. Instinct that would now turn the Kryptonian against her if she was feeling trapped.

Cat took a deep breath and opened the door. She couldn't stand in the hall all morning wondering 'what if', she had to face whatever reality held for her. As she swung the door open gently, she glanced around the room and her brows drew together in confusion. The room was empty, but she knew she hadn't heard the door open, and she certainly would have noticed the blonde roaming through the penthouse. None of the windows were open or broken, so clearly she hadn't flown off anywhere.

Stepping inside the room, Cat saw that the bathroom door was open half-way and the light was on. She really didn't want to approach the girl in such a small area. She feared that it might seem threatening and confrontational, but she didn't see that she had much of a choice. Kara might have gotten up to use the bathroom and then passed out, further injuring herself.

With slow steps, she rounded the bed and moved towards the bathroom, slowly pressing the door further open when she got there. The sight that met her eyes both frightened her and broke her heart.

Kara was still sitting in the tub, completely wrapped up in the blanket from the bed, with only her face and her blonde hair visible. Here eyes were huge, and Cat couldn't tell if she was even seeing her or was lost in some terror within her mind. Because it was clear that the woman was scared out of her mind. She was moving slightly, just back and forth, back and forth, while those blue, blue eyes stared right through her.

"Kara?"

And the woman suddenly startled and then blinked as if she couldn't understand what she had just heard. In truth, she couldn't believe it. She hadn't heard her name uttered by anyone but Alex or Maxwell Lord in almost two years. It sounded strange coming from this new voice. This green-eyed woman. She blinked again, several times in rapid succession, trying to discover if this was real or a jumble of thoughts and dreams. Why would this woman be here? Where was here? What was going to happen to her now? She clutched at the blanket tighter and started rocking a little faster.

"Kara... That is your name, isn't it?" Cat said, trying to keep her voice slow and calm although her heart was pounding fast within her chest.

For a moment Kara didn't know what to answer. Didn't know if this was a trick or a tortured hallucination, or the real world. Sadly, that last seemed like the least likely option.

"You're safe here. I had you brought here last night," Cat explained. "You remember the park? You helped me. You kept that man from - well, never mind about that. You were hurt and I had you brought here and had a doctor look at you."

At that, Kara startled again, much more violently. Doctors were never good. Never. She had to get out. She had to run from this place before any other doctors came for her. With jerking motions, she started to scramble out of the tub, but she struggled to get her legs untangled from the blanket and pitched forward over the side. Only Cat's quick dash across the room kept her from slamming her head against the tile floor, but when she realized what she was doing, she just as quickly righted the other woman and stepped back, holding her hands in the air and trying to seem as non-threatening as possible.

"I swear, you're safe here. The doctor is a friend of mine. He's not going to tell anyone you're here, and neither am I. You're injured and your powers are gone, and you need a safe place to rest. This place."

Kara's eyes snapped up to meet Cat's at the mention of her powers. So this woman did know that she was an Alpha. This woman knew what she was capable of and was still offering her a place to hide and rest.

"My name is Cat Grant. Maybe you've heard of me? CatCo Worldwide Media. CatCo Magazine, etcetera, etcetera," she said adding a slight flourish with her hand.

Kara had thought she'd seen something familiar when she'd stared at the woman in the park. She'd felt memories pricking at the back of her mind, and now she felt them becoming less foggy, less shrouded by the conditioning that taught her that anything prior to LordTech was unimportant and even dangerous to think about. Kara looked up at Cat, still somewhat fearfully, and nodded her head just once.

It was enough for Cat, and she breathed a long sigh of relief before saying, "And you're Kara Zor-El. Is that right?"

Kara's eyes took on a more frightened and haunted look again. That name was something she had been trained to reject, even as she'd clung to it in her heart. She nodded again, slowly.

"Well then, now we've settled on who we both are, I am going to leave and get you something to eat and something to wear." She motioned to the blanket. "I'm sorry we took your clothes, but we needed to cut your top off to treat your shoulder, and then it seemed simplest to remove the whole thing."

She backed out of the room slowly, watching as Kara relaxed slightly.

"That tub is not the most comfortable place to sit, so I suggest you come out here and get back into bed," Cat said, trying to make her voice sound gentle but confident.

However long Kara had been held by LordTech, she had obviously learned to obey commands, and to fear personal choice. She hoped that providing some concrete guidance would make her feel more secure. As she continued to back away and then turned, she saw Kara begin to move, extricating herself from the blanket. Cat let out another quietly held breath and left the room quickly.

Once in the hall, she shut the door and then leaned back against it, breathing hard and staring at a point high on the opposite wall. She had not expected that to be so terrifying, and she hoped that at least some small amount of progress had been made.

On the other side of the door, Kara moved, step by slow step, out to the bedroom, dragging the blanket in one hand. She looked around, her eyes darting to every corner to make sure that her new captor was gone. Cat Grant. Not really her captor. Kara wasn't sure what she was. A protector? That couldn't possibly be right. Kara shook her head, trying to settle the confusing thoughts that swirled within.

She looked at the bed. Cat Grant had told her to get back in bed, but it was right near the door. It was the first thing anyone would see when they entered. Too open. To exposed. Kara looked around the room and then pushed the chair further from the window. She pulled the duvet from the bed and piled it onto the floor where the chair had been and then curled up in a tight ball on top of it. The chair and the bed blocked her from view, but she could still see just the top of the door. Pulling the blanket over herself she kept her eyes focused on the the door and wondered when it would open again. Cat Grant had said she was safe, but her heart still beat fast, like bird wings fluttering against her ribs. Even if she was safe for now, she didn't think she would ever fly again.


End file.
